Category Archives: Poetry

“The Workaday World” – Poetry by Jeff Laughlin

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Sunset - Felix Valloton
Sunset – Felix Valloton

Jeff Laughlin‘s yet-unpublished poetry collection “Life and Debt” is a sad, sardonic howl of rational insanity from the trenches of 21st Century office drudgery. We were extremely lucky to have two poems from that collection in our Summer 2014 issue: “Lunch,”  which we posted online back in July, and  “The Workaday World,” which you can read below:

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DON’T LAMENT THE HORIZON’S AFFECTATION,
the sun only does its job every day.

Don’t forget the simpleton orators,
their brilliance has so little say.

Don’t dissuade a boss’s gentle import,
even if they have such brittle ways.

Don’t permeate your intelligence,
it will only give your hair some gray.

Don’t forget there’s little to work for,
you’ll never earn your needed play.

Don’t egress unless you’ve something more,
be penniless as you overstay.

{ X }

JarffJEFF  LAUGHLIN writes about the Bobcats Hornets forCreative Loafing Charlotte & about sports in general forTriad City Beat in Greensboro, NC. His 1st book of poetry, Drinking with British Architects, is riddled with mistakes but available free if you want it. His 2nd book is Alcoholics Are Sick People, and If you ask nicely, he’ll probably give that to you too. Contact Jeff on his seldom-used twitter (@beardsinc) or email him (repetitionisfailure @gmail.com). He likely needs a haircut.

“Waning & Waiting” and “Erotics of Silence” – Poetry by Lonnie Monka

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Gun - Andy Warhol, 1981
Guns – Andy Warhol, 1981

Lonnie Monka‘s poems “Waning & Waiting” and “Erotics of Silence”, included in our Summer 2014 issue, are very brief but very powerful, so without further ado:

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“Waning & Waiting”

BULLETS WHIZ
        past people’s ears
every day
      on city streets;
I have shot
      the same gun
others have used
      for suicide.

The stop signs have
      no gun holes here,
the sun is blocked
      from flirting strands
of light, flickering
      with the rising
& the setting
      of lust-filled days:—
Maybe tomorrow
      I’ll find her,
perhaps I will pull
      hard on her hair.

Every day
      I wake up
a blinded bird
      that craves to fly:
Who can resist
      the savage pleasure
of pushing hard
      against the air?

{ X }

“Erotics of Silence”

IF ONLY—OH! IF ONLY THE BURNING,
scorching bits
of I-don’t-know-what
would stop.

{ X }

LONNIE MONKA is a U.S. native now living in Jerusalem. He loves the finer things in life, like reading & writing. Lately, he’s been happily hard at work developing Jerusalism, a literary community based in Israel.

“The fallow months” and “What’s cooking” – Poetry by Daniel Ari

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The Rock of Salvation - Samuel Colman, 1837
The Rock of Salvation – Samuel Colman, 1837

Daniel Ari has spent the past few years working in an original poetry form called “queron,” in which each poem contains three quintets and a final couplet, an interweaving rhyme scheme, and a question. We’re thrilled to include two of Daniel’s queron poems– “The fallow months” and “What’s cooking”— in our Summer 2014 issue.

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“The fallow months”

MY HUNGER, LOVE, IS LIKE AN ALIEN MOON.
I know you feel its phases subtly
as tired nights pale from busy afternoons.
The strange globe with its aching liquid pull—
astronomical and inopportune—

has stirred storm clouds lately, love. It grows full
and stirs tides and winds into two hoarse cries.
In here, we’ve battened down, sorted the mail.
Do you remember the last time that eye
closed in satisfied rest in the cocoon,

turbulence muted under the duvet
of earth’s shadow? Did you know sixty-two
moons (nine of them provisional) fly by
Saturn, not to mention the rings? And do
you know how insistent my orbital

gravity winds up? Even typhoons blow!
You’re the sovereign sea, but I’m thirsty, too.

{ X }

“What’s cooking”

MY GRANDMOTHER CALLED THIS “SNARE-A-HUSBAND.”
She never wrote out the recipe but
made me memorize it before she died.
I’m humming the song of ingredients,
stirring around your name, my bowl, my bird.

Yet your freedom’s what I love most, my heart,
and I’m far too giddy to bake a trap
even if I wanted to. When we part
tonight with our bellies full, night will wrap
its separate dreams around us. My David,

will you dream of me? Earthy smells rise up
layering the edible atmosphere
held steaming beneath the coal-crusted tarp
of stars. If you will be mine, then we’re here
for that purpose. Eat, my friend. Fill your plate.

Two birds told me about the weight you bear.
Swallow that bite then share, please, share your thoughts.

{ X }

DAUmbrellacropDANIEL ARI writes, teaches and publishes poetry. His blogs are fightswithpoems.blogspot.com and IMUNURI.blogspot.com. He has recently placed work in Poet’s Market (2014 and 2015 editions), Writer’s Digest, carte blanche, Cardinal Sins, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Daniel also works as a professional copywriter and performs improvisation with the troupe Wing It in Oakland. He lives in Richmond, California.

“The New Mother” – Poetry by Judith Skillman

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from The Creation of Adam - Michelangelo, c. 1512
from The Creation of Adam – Michelangelo, c. 1512

“It’s like a finger always touching you,” writes Judith Skillman in her poem “The New Mother.” It’s just one of several pieces in our Summer 2014 issue that wrestles with the anxiety of motherhood, and it dwells somewhere along the blurred edges between mundane suburban reality and the uncanny surrealism of  subconsciousness. 

{ X }

SHE STANDS ON HER DECK SMOKING, LEANING
on those lovely arms.  How is he, we ask,
passing, nostalgia welling up
for our lost chunky ones.  She stands
and smokes, steeped in her hair,
her face, her jeans.  He’s good, his Dad
came home late and took him for a walk.
The secret’s out, she can’t put it back
but she does. I’m fine until 5 but after that,
well, it’s like always being touched,

I can’t even pee without—
We interrupt, our late middle-aged laughter
gnawing at what’s left of September summer.
I remember, I say, I was always ready to—
looking sidewise at a man
I barely remember marrying.
Glancing up at the loveliness of her,
all the elements of home lit
by the kitchen beyond, its canisters
where mystery blends and foments.

I’m fine until 5, she repeats, her faint smile
like the day moon, and we turn away,
see the father heading downhill, the stroller
and blanketed cargo, its selvages
burning like skin meant to be taken
and taken again.  That night
we make love until we fall back,
old in faded blue sheets,
sated with too much—like a finger always
touching you she said, it’s like that.

{ X }

JudithSkillmanJUDITH SKILLMAN is the author of fifteen books of poetry. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, Northwest Review, Midwest Quarterly Review, Southern Review, and Prairie Schooner. Visit her website at JudithSkillman.com

“Birdy Told Me” – Poetry by Frederick Pollack

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Passenger Pigeon - John J. Audubon, 1838
Passenger Pigeon – John J. Audubon, 1838

We often wonder whether animals are smarter and sneakier than they let on. And after reading  “Birdy Told Me,”  the poem by Frederick Pollack from our Summer issue, we’re almost convinced that they must be.

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IF ANIMALS COULD TALK THEY’D LIE. Consider:
they know people know how they suffer
yet do nothing; maybe
(they think) we’d do better
running individual scams.
Crows get tips from pigeons on ledges
on Wall Street, at race-tracks,
exchange them for carrion. Raccoons
promise to police your rain-gutters,
guard your house; eventually
they sell protection. (Dogs keep
their mouths shut, except when eating.) Deer
set up as gurus. They’re so cute and can do
charisma. Are one with all life, with
the Goddess, they say. Whoever
shoots one of us or runs one of us down
will burn. In every city or town
there is within easy distance a vacant
lot or patch of weeds beside
a road. Sit in it, say the deer, sit
long enough in the center of the weeds
and you will be made whole and purified.

{ x }

fredpollackFREDERICK POLLACK is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness, both published by Story Line Press.  Other poems in print and online journals.  Adjunct professor creative writing George Washington University. Poetics: neither navelgazing mainstream nor academic pseudo-avant-garde.

 

“Lunch” – Poetry by Jeff Laughlin

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Christ Feeding the Multitude - Artist & Date Unknown
Christ Feeding the Multitude – Artist & Date Unknown

In our Summer 2014 issue (currently available in PDF form for $3 US), our old friend Jeff Laughlin has two viciously funny and deeply incisive poems about poverty & other job-related miseries, excerpted from his fantastic new collection Life and Debt. We’re very flappy to present one of those poems, “Lunch,” below.

{ X }

OH WHAT WONDROUS STORIES AWAIT THE MASSES–
oh counterculture, lie down next to each of us
band us together under avarice-torn skies
as we rip to shreds our love of the moment.

This sandwich belies the true ideas of the gods!
Tuna fish! Tuna fish! I hearken to the days when
only seven of you would have fed 5,000 of us.
Now I am still hungry after devouring you whole.

Do you remember when we got an hour? I gave
lunch up for overtime long ago—when the air
was still clean and soda cost fifty cents and oh
when the myth of raises weren’t so horribly stale.

When the old guard still worked here, we drank
all day and cavorted with women all night, but
some of them died and others disappeared, say,
have you heard from them? I miss their candor.

They would never have taken these benefit cuts.
No, they would have painted their faces and boldly
attacked with blind rage! No matters of money or
heart can destroy the will of those ineffable beasts!

Send us the treasonous, venomous lying horde of
office-workers! We’ll crush them, hands wrenching
raw neckbone, blood streaming down our arms, but
I need a ride to the bank first, please, I have overdrawn.

{ X }

JarffJEFF  LAUGHLIN writes about the Bobcats Hornets for Creative Loafing Charlotte & about sports in general for Triad City Beat in Greensboro, NC. His 1st book of poetry, Drinking with British Architects, is riddled with mistakes but available free if you want it. His 2nd book is Alcoholics Are Sick People, and If you ask nicely, he’ll probably give that to you too. Contact Jeff on his seldom-used twitter (@beardsinc) or email him (repetitionisfailure @gmail.com). He likely needs a haircut.

Three Poems by J. Bradley

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photo(7)J. Bradley is as talented as he is prolific: His surreal yet poignant work has appeared in scores of publications, and we were immensely flattered to include four of his poems in our Spring 2014 Issue. We posted one of those poems (“No More Poems About Resolutions”) back in January; now we’re very flappy to present “A Highly Magnified History,” “When a Poet Wants to Date You,” and “Yelp Review – Total Wine.”

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“A Highly Magnified History”

Chairs strain to support
the weight of want.
Mannequins shed felt
and wood, leaving sundresses,
blouses on skeletons;
they refuse to flap against
the artificial air.

“When a Poet Wants to Date You”

The mortuary sits on the coffee table,
nondescript. You think the cover
would be made of his skin, her skin.
He slaps your hand for accusing

his love of hemophilia;
the wine never clots.

“Yelp Review – Total Wine”

There are shelves of organs waiting to be pickled with special occasions. Pick a name like a rose to clench or to cast into fire, water, or wind. Pick how you will revise a memory, what desert to costume your tongue with; forgiveness is something you can never drown in, no matter how hard your lungs want it.

{ X }

J. BRADLEYJ. BRADLEY is the author of the graphic poetry collection, The Bones of Us (YesYes Books, 2014). He lives at iheartfailure.net.

 

“Reach” – Poetry by Tom Stephan

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Nudes in Dunes - Otto Mueller, 1920
Nudes in Dunes – Otto Mueller, 1920

A cloud of “unspoken violence” hangs in the air above Tom Stephan‘s “Reach,” a poem which resides in that alluring and mysterious locale known as the hotel room. “Reach” is just one of 19 very flappery works of literature that you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, now on sale for 3 measly American dollars.

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I REACH ACROSS THE BED
And keep reaching
Sheets like virgin dunes
To where you should have been on the shore I could not see.

The hum of guitar strings
Or violins
Or sympathetic sitars
with a bit of wounded care
I strain across vastness and you are never there.

Is there some key that unlocks you?
In the golden light of cheap curtains
In plastic hotels and crunchy pillows
Some hidden lever to move our lives together?

I packed the room today
Sat at the edge of the bed
Listened to the shower drone overlong.
And you are naked and wet, and at my side, saying are you ready—

Yes, I’m ready.

The air is thick
Industrial cleaner and bleach
And unspoken violence
You dress for the execution; I will fire point blank into your heart.

We toss the keycards on the floor
and shut the door behind us.

 { X }

tomstephanTOM STEPHAN is a Texas native who has spent a little time being a bit of everything: teacher, actor, playwright, writer, traveler. When he’s not doing any of those things he’s living in Austin and eating well. He has a BA in English, an MFA in Acting and has a curious collection of hats and suspenders. 

“The Puddle of Romeo’s Tears” – Poetry by Luis Galindo

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Romeo and Juliet - Ford Madox Brown, 1870
Romeo and Juliet – Ford Madox Brown, 1870

Luis Galindo‘s “The Puddle of Romeo’s Tears” is our favorite kind of heartbreak poem: bitter yet playful, melancholy yet comic,  graceful yet naughty. And it’s but one of the many savory slices of lit you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, on sale for just $3.

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WHY DIDN’T YOU RETURN MY HOWLS
Last night
Under the moon’s silver chains
And pink undergarments?
Were you busy? Were you washing
Your hair in the tears
Of half-assed Romeos
In the unrequited evening?

I was there
Under your balcony
Wearing a green snake-skin
suit that I bought
from the Our Mother of Holy Agony
Thrift store on the corner of
Mistake and Trust.
While standing there
And howling, I could see
The sign of the manufacturer
Of the fire escape under your window.
Stamped into the cold dark steel:
Dirtyfuckinglie, Inc.

I stood there for hours with
A love poem I had written
The night before on a napkin
From our favorite Chinese restaurant.

I had planned on reciting it
To you, at midnight
But it was too late.
You were
Not There
You were

Elsewhere.

Continue reading “The Puddle of Romeo’s Tears” – Poetry by Luis Galindo →

“Window Glass” – Poetry by Mila Jaroniec

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Frau mit Schleier (Woman with Veil) - Odilon Redon, 1895
Woman with Veil – Odilon Redon, 1895

There’s a question in the middle of Mila Jaroniec‘s “Window Glass” that bites us in the heart every time we read it. This dark, wistful, slightly sardonic poem is merely one of the many fine works of lit that you can read in our Spring 2014 Issue, now available for purchase at the low low price of just $3.

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THE WINDOW GLASS IS TEXTURED WITH DIRT. My eyes settle on smears of leftover Windex in between squished bugs. Wonder if everyone sees the world through dirty glass. Wonder if everyone knows there’s always glass. I consider going outside for a moment but then remember my halfheartedly molting sunburn.

Shelley wrote something about the painted veil, what was that?
That wasn’t this.

            Go clean your room, my mother said. No man wants to marry a slob.

            No one gets married anymore.

            Don’t be silly. Everyone gets married.

                        When we were together I never got a ring
                        or a tattoo of your name
                        but I still feel you next to me when I smell cigarettes or touch leather
                        maybe that’s why I don’t wear my jacket or smoke.

            Who are you going to die with?

Pinpricks of stars dot the expanse of black sky. It’s quiet.
My cigarette tip illuminates the invisible street.

Last summer we looked at that sky, you and I
we lay on our backs on the bike trail and when you put
your hand
under my sweatshirt
my heart
ricocheted violently,
pinpricks of stars,
like air holes in a dark
box that someone keeps
their pets in,
and looks inside
from time to time
to check if we’re alive.

{ X } 

MilaJaroniecMILA JARONIEC lives in New York City.